


no, no - they can't take that away from me

by havisham



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: (She Just Got a Reboot in 1984), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky In Seductive Mode, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Cockblocked By the Blitz, F/M, Natasha Is A Semi-Immortal Superspy, World War II, and then really really not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:16:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The way you throw your knife /  The way we danced until three / The way you've changed my life /</i><br/>No, no - they can't take that away from me. </p><p> </p><p>For anon who asked for Bucky/Nat, an AU where Bucky meets her in the 1940's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no, no - they can't take that away from me

_Oh boy._

Well, Bucky was having a hard time staying awake, despite the all the drinks that had been foisted on him since he had arrived at the pub, dragging Steve along with him. He was conscious that, despite his efforts, Steve looked better-prepared than he did, his uniform was as neat as a pin and his hair was just so. 

Bucky was sure he had never been _this_ bad, but what did it matter? Steve was looking good and Bucky was happy for him, really, he was. 

Bucky hadn’t managed to do any of his own usual primping and posing, like he would have done back in Brooklyn. He didn’t have the heart for it, and anyway, his uniform was clean and so was he, and that was good enough for him. 

He sat at the corner of the bar and watched Steve’s frankly painful attempt to seduce the beautiful Agent Carter. She looked more amused by his efforts than insulted; which was good, and there was a hungry look in her eyes, which was better. 

Steve, of course, didn’t seem to notice. He blundered on with his conversation with all the grace of a wounded gazelle. But it was _working._ Agent Carter laughed at something Steve said. 

Steve flushed and she bit her lower lip and smirked. 

Bucky sighed, and felt proud of Steve’s progress, however awkwardly accomplished. He didn’t blame Agent Carter for her interest in Steve -- she had a pair of working eyes on her, didn’t she? Steve looked like a regular Adonis now; he attracted admiring looks from all the dames (and not a few men) and it wasn’t like Bucky was _jealous_ of him. 

(He _wasn’t_ \-- what would he be jealous of? Who would he be jealous of?) 

A big-wig, some colonel with a famous name, came in and waved Steve over to talk. Peggy joined him a moment later, and Bucky was alone as he could have wished to be. 

In the corner of his eye, Bucky saw a flash of red -- a different shade than Peggy’s dress. A woman sat down next to him and ordered a drink. She had a voice like smoke, with a trace of a foreign accent (then again, this was London, everyone had an accent) and she ignored him for a time, as she took a few, deliberate sips of her drink. 

She was lovely to look at, this woman. Her hair was dark red -- auburn, and softly curling around her face. Bucky was staring and turned to look away when she asked his name. 

“James,” he said quickly and she gave him a fleeting smile. 

“That blond man over there seems to think you’re named Bucky.”

Bucky scoffed lightly. “Bucky? What kind of name is that? But enough about me -- what’s _your_ name, beautiful?” 

The woman had light green eyes, the color of tart apples, the sort Bucky’s mother would slice and bake into pies. “My name is Ana.” 

Ana had been a ballerina in Paris, and she had escaped before it fell to the Germans. She had come to England with nothing except the clothes on her back and a battered second-hand copy of War and Peace. Bucky gave her a sly look, but she was perfectly serious. It didn’t matter. Ana could have claimed to be lost Russian royalty, he’d believe her.

“What do you do now?” he asked her. 

“I’m a dancer,” she said. 

“Well,” Bucky said, getting up. “We better dance, then.” He offered her his hand and after a moment of hesitation, she took it. Bucky was a damn good dancer, even if he said so himself, and Ana knew her stuff. By the end of the dance, they clung to each other, breathless. 

“Do you want to get out of here?” Bucky asked her, his voice husky and low. 

“Are you making an attempt at my virtue, Sergeant?” 

“I must not be doing a very good job if you have to ask…” 

“All right,” she said smoothly. “Show me what you can do.” 

But there wasn’t a dark corner around the place that wasn’t already occupied by a necking couple. After the fourth or fifth try, Bucky was beginning to get discouraged. Ana pulled him aside and pressed a slow, searing kiss on his mouth. Bucky, blinked and pressed his back against the wall, feeling slightly dazed. 

The lights flickered overhead. 

“Perhaps we’ll see each other again, Sergeant Barnes,” Ana said, letting go of him. 

Bucky began to protest when the room was plunged into darkness. Chaos erupted, and he heard someone shout his name. _Steve._ Bucky raced to Steve’s side and found him in the middle of the fray.

Bucky shouted over the din, “Is it HYDRA? Or the Germans? Why didn’t we hear the alarms?” 

Steve winced. “Nothing so fancy -- the music drowned out the sirens, I guess. Come on, let’s get people out of here.” 

Bucky blinked. He had hardly even heard the music, after Ana made her appearance. 

“Where’s Agent Carter?” 

“She left already, escorting Colonel Bigwig back to his hotel.” 

The rest of night was devoted to clean-up -- it hadn’t been a direct hit, but the roof was unstable; the 500-year-old timbers close to becoming matchsticks. Agent Carter came around, looking charmingly disheveled and missing her charge. Apparently he had gone back for one little drink when the lights had gone out. 

They found him unconscious in the washroom and the confidential files he had been carrying with him, gone. 

* 

_Fuck._

Natasha slipped a little on the wet grass, as she pulled her unconscious engineer away from the burning wreckage of their transport. They were fifty miles away from Odessa, in an empty field at night. There were no trees, no houses, no cover. No hope. 

Natasha clenched her jaw and got ready to confront the man that had brought them off the road. In the near-dark of early morning, she could not quite see anything moving around her, but she could feel --

The shot tore through her side with blinding ease. She fell on the ground with a grunt, and heard another shot. Her engineer slumped against her. He had never had a chance to wake up. Desperately, Natasha reached for her weapon -- if her gun was out of reach, then her knives would do. A shadow loomed over her and he kicked the knife out her faltering hand, and even in the dim light she could make out the dull gleam of metal. The butt of a rifle? No, a hand …? 

She was losing blood. _Finish it_ , she hissed at her assailant in Russian -- she had a good idea that he would understand. He did. The mask he wore was -- inhuman, horrible to the extreme. Natasha knew that if she survived this, the man’s face would make itself known in her memories. 

He leaned forward -- to get a better shot -- and Natasha surged forward used her gauntlets to spray the man’s face with venom. He swore harshly -- an unholy mixture of Russian and English -- and she leaned back, satisfied. If left untreated, the venom could blind a man within two hours. She expected more gunshots, but none came. The man was gone. 

She felt an overwhelming desire to sleep. As she slipped into unconsciousness, Natasha thought, _Clint’s going to kill me if I die…_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Elleth, for taking a look at it. ♥


End file.
